SOUND BITES

Sometimes, in my constant search of discovery, I get a little far sighted.  By which I mean, in an effort to scour the ends of the earth to find a new band that's exciting, I sometimes neglect the homegrown talent the Maritimes have to offer. Thanks to a post over at Exclaim!, I just checked out an awesome new video by a (relatively) new band by the name of Boxer The Horse.  As it turns out, they're from Charlottetown.  Go figure. Anyway, they released their sophomore album French Residency independently in March, and have just released a video for Rattle Your Cage .  It was made on the cheap, but has amazing ideas in it.  And dogs.  Plus, it musically hearkens back to Pavement's crunchy 90's sound.  And really, if you're going to hearken back you can do a hell of a lot worse than that. Fun fact: to celebrate the release of French Residency , Boxer The Horse played a hometown show at the Legion.  How cool is that?

Billy Talent have been slowly working away on their fourth album, which theoretically should see release later this year.  To reward fans who have been waiting for new material, they've posted up a new song called Viking Death March on their website. Now, I'm no expert on Vikings, but to me the lyrical content of the track seems to be speaking more to one percenters than ancient Norse warriors (example: "Rats fighting for scraps / Siphon the gas from your tank / Left your pockets empty / As they laughed to the bank").  Of course, the title may be an excuse for a video wherein Vikings hack one percenters to bits with axes, which would be pretty entertaining. At any rate, I'm not here to argue the literalness of the title, I'm here to give you a listen:

With their amazing new single 45 seeing release in its namesake format, we finally get to check out its B-side, which happens to be a rugged but faithful cover of Tom Petty's 1982 hit You Got Lucky . Fans will be pleased to know that, in addition to its presence on the 45 single, You Got Lucky will be included as one of three bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of Handwritten. No word on whether or not bonus track Sliver is a cover of the Nirvana tune, but as we get closer to release date that sort of information always... shall we say, leaks out. Have a listen to You Got Lucky: Handwritten is The Gaslight Anthem's major label debut, coming July 24 on Mercury.

Since the flow of actual, exciting rock music news is sort of slow lately, and since I don't want the old blog to stagnate, I figured I'd take this opportunity to point you toward some album streams.  This way, I get "blog post" ticked off the to-do list, and you get to listen to some tunes.  Deal?

I can't let you go too long without some new ear candy, but it's been a little slow over the past week and a half, so we'll both have to make do with some random stuff that's piqued my interest of late. First up is, I suppose, some big news: The Tragically Hip have a new single.  Honestly, I'd have posted this a week ago, but I've been waiting for album and release date info.  They're being tight lipped about that for the moment, but it stands to reason we'll see something rather soon (July is my guess).  Hopefully Murphy's Law takes it from here, wherein I make this post and they announce all the dirt in an hour. At Transformation feels like an exercise in compromise; the tune rocks harder than most of their recent output, but Gord Downie's lyrics and delivery refuse to take us all the way back to the early 90's.  This will likely be a problem for some, but I've always stood by the band despite their stubborn refusal to record Up ...

Tenacious D's new album may not be quite up to snuff with their classic debut, but it does have at least three things going for it: a) Dave Grohl provides all of the drum tracks for the album, and in case you haven't gleaned it from every record he's ever drummed on, the man is a monster . b) They've somehow managed to fool the censors by putting a giant penis on their album cover. c) Jack Black's time in Hollywood has earned him some famous friends, and he's called in favours for The D's videos of late.  The new one for Roadie is seven minutes of pure gold, thanks in no small part to the always entertaining Danny McBride. Rize of the Penis Fenix is out now via Columbia.

Early this year, Baroness' record company sent out a tweet asking what impending 2012 release we were most interested in.  Many folks were (understandably) stoked for a new Pig Destroyer album; after all, it's been six years since the incredible grinders have graced us with their presence in recorded form.  However, many fans sided with Baroness, expressing excitement in the direction of the Georgian metallers who enjoyed a pseudo-breakthrough in 2009 with Blue Record .  That album saw a shift away from the band's more extreme tendencies, peppering its tracks with muscular melody.  It was a triumph of a record, one that probably should have reached more ears than it did.  That said, when asked by Relapse for an opinion, sometimes I give one, and responded thusly:

Occasionally, I look at the list of upcoming releases on the right of this page and realize I haven't had your back as far as sampling what you're in for with these records.  So I thought, with a week passed between posts and these records sneaking up on us, that I should probably post up a few tracks.

Today, incredibly sad news broke of the passing of Beastie Boys co-founder Adam Yauch (aka MCA).  After being diagnosed and treated for cancer in 2009, it was an accepted possibility that we would see this day.  Still, the loss is shocking, sad and huge; not only for the hip-hop world he helped pioneer and bring to the mainstream in the 80's, but for music in general. I could write a 20,000 word essay on the effect that Beastie Boys had on music.  But, at the end of the day, what needs to be said that can't be said by the music left behind? A life in rhyme chronicled in videos after the jump.  You'll be missed, MCA. Yauch was 47.